I love information. An incredible amount of it is stored within the arrangement of patterns and designs sprawled across a map. For me, deciphering that data has always been a pleasure, never a chore. In the classroom, my history texts were filled with them. That is one reason why I was drawn to that subject. And when that was not enough, the local library provided troves of source material. My book piles always contained two or three books about battles. Fantasy novels also captivated me, in no small part, because of the guaranteed map nestled within its pages.
I love stories. Whether listening to a good friend, watching an informative documentary, or reading an exciting book, I lose myself in the narrative being shared. Maps tell a story, too. Of great armies colliding over rolling hills. Trade routes traversing jagged mountains and thirsty deserts. People fleeing old fears, and racing into new ones. And the location of ancient flora and fauna no human has ever witnessed. Maps are another means of transporting me to where I have never been.
Maps were always a part of my life. There is a strong memory of me tucked away in a third-floor bedroom, horrified by pages of maps pinpointing the concentration camps and massacres of the Holocaust. And there is clear recollection of an exciting moment, as I opened up JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit only to discover a folded map, four times the size of the pages containing it. My love for a computer game, Pirates!, extended to the beautiful poster-size map of the Spanish Main included in the box. My addiction to National Geographic had less to do with the occasional bare breast, and more to do with the wall maps included with some issues.
I drew them, too. Maps, not breasts. The earliest ones were the simplest and most prolific. Pages of loose leaf, each containing a large island, with long, rounded coastlines. They were colorful, because I drew them as elevation maps, each color indicating a height above sea level. You can blame my love for another computer game, Starflight. Then there were the battle plans. Some were historical, while others drew from my imagination. Finally, Dungeons and Dragons entered my life, and graph paper, at first filled with squares, and then finally hexes, opened up worlds to me.
Then computers arrived, became powerful, and offered an entirely new experience. I do not remember being much interested in dinosaurs as a child. My love for history focused on the human one. However, something happened to me a decade ago. While researching information about prehistoric times, I came across a wonderful video on the internet. It showed how the continents drifted, formed super continents, and some times all but disappeared beneath rising sea level. Maps. That moved. Across time. I was in love. And that began a deep dive into paleontology, specifically the geological aspect.
This being a Weekly Checkup, there must be a link that inspired this post, right? Well, indeed, there is, and I discovered it this afternoon. Now, none of my readers, save one, will find the article interesting. But I will include it anyway, if only to share with you the kind of things that excite me. The link covers another childhood fascination of mine, one that has not quite died, but that I have not found time to pursue. It has to do with military board games. I collected about half a dozen of them before I reached high school, and have not purchased any since. Nor have ever played them with anyone. Partly because I had few friends, and none of them would have been interested. But also, for me at least, it was not about the game itself. These board games were historical, and included detailed maps with stylized counters or pieces. Those beautiful, colorful maps, made of sturdy cardboard, tattooed with symbols for terrain, borders, and objectives, captivated me. Opening those boxes, pulling out the boards, and laying them across the table. Poking out little rectangular pieces covered with unit information. Hundreds of them. Then placing them within various hexes that crisscrossed the map. Set up took an hour or more. Occasionally I would play a round or two, rolling dice, moving counters. Eventually, I would stop, clean it all up, and put it away. That was it. Like I said, I never played any of the games with anyone.
And somehow it was pure childhood bliss.
So, when I saw an article about board game I grew intrigued. When I discovered that it was about two middle-aged men reviewing it, I was amused. And when I read how moved they were by the map itself, I became nostalgic.
It inspired me to write this long post about maps.
